Write,
Don’t Wonder
Company
Personal Project
Role
Product Designer
Platform
Web app (responsive)
Problem
I’d like to journal more, but I struggle to find topics to write about. I enjoy using prompts I find online, but it’s a bit of a faff having to sift through lists, select one and resume writing.
Solution
A web app I can access through a shortcut on my phone, so that I can quickly find a relevant prompt, copy it and get back to journaling.
Feature/Specs
A 2-screen app that does what it says on the tin: provides journaling prompts so that you don’t have to overthink it!
Impact
- A great learning experience with Figma Make.
- I actually use it for my daily journaling.
Problem
I wanted to journal more often, but the “what do I write about?” loop killed my consistency. I’d spend 10 minutes scrolling through prompt lists, only to give up. What I really needed was a roulette: one prompt, no decisions.
MVP: Chatting to ChatGPT
My first version wasn’t an app at all — it was a pinned ChatGPT conversation. Each morning I’d type “Day 1, Day 2…” and it would hand me a new prompt. It worked, but it was clunky: buried in my chat history and not exactly elegant for 7am journaling.
Next idea: Real app, real AI
Naturally, I dreamed bigger: a native iOS app with GPT generating prompts on demand. Users could pick categories or get random ones. But then reality:
- Publishing costs
- API call costs
- I don’t code (a small hurdle, but still)
For something meant to simplify my mornings, it was overkill.
The failed database experiment
Plan B: have ChatGPT generate a giant database of prompts. I asked for 500, then 1,000. The results? Duplicate-ridden filler like “What is a real reflection I haven’t yet explored about [theme]?”. Not usable.
After a few amusing apologies from GPT, I switched tactics: I manually sourced prompts from blogs/books, then asked GPT to clean and categorise them. That worked — I ended up with over 1,000 prompts neatly grouped by theme.
Building in Figma Make
With the content sorted, I built a simple two-screen app in Figma Make. The flow:
- Tap a button → see a prompt
- Choose by category or random
- Reset back to home
I saved it to my phone’s home screen, so it feels like an app even though it’s just a web shortcut.
UI tweaks with AI
Refining the UI in Figma Make was fun. I’d start with vague suggestions to get the creative juices flowing, then focus on specifics like spacing and hierarchy. While some added touches were cute, they didn’t enhance the experience, so I removed them.
IA can’t replace designers yet, but it does speed up the design process and reduce costs. It would have been quick to test this with users; we need faster ways to present prototypes. Here are a few iterations of my app, along with a link to try it out.
Conclusion
- I use it daily, friction gone.
- 1,000 prompts categorised into themes.
- A working micro-app that started as a conversation with GPT and ended as a tool I actually rely on.
ETA: As I’m looking at the screenshots, I realise there should be a bit more spacing between the name of the person who gave the quote and the ‘Surprise Me’ button. Stay tuned for future tweaks and major iterations 😉
Currently open to contract and full-time work. Reach out to irenealgi@gmail.com for more information.
© Irene Alegre 2025
